Narcissism and systemic approach. A systematic review

Psychopathology is a field not much explored by the systemic-relational theory and, in particular, scientific works on Personality Disorders are lacking. The aim of this work is to understand whether and how many scientific works have treated the narcissistic personality through the theoretical premises of systemic-relational approach. We carried out a systematic review of the scientific literature to identify and discuss existing studies, with the intent to define a starting point for the analysis of the system that onsets and maintains the narcissistic personality. Few articles were selected. Despite they describe differently the narcissistic personality and the system within which the symptomatology develops, there are some similarities. They concern the diffusion of family boundaries and the rejection of individual characteristics within the system, the childhood parentification and the need to maintain the external appearance